Reviewer:
Carlomagno
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May 19, 2011
Subject:
Viewed but not reviewed?
Though both picture and sound quality are now poor, this film has the immediacy of documentary plus the poignancy of past struggles. Looking at non-whites in South Africa, it contrasts the bleakness of their life with the privileges enjoyed by most whites.
Some interviewees defend the system, with logic which now seems self-serving or just blind. Others attack it from various angles. Unfortunately few are named, but I recognised Ambrose Reeves, the courageous Anglican bishop of Johannesburg who was later expelled, and Alan Paton, the eminent author who always sought reconciliation. The latter insists that the architect of apartheid, Dr Malan, really is a nice old man with just this one huge blind spot over race.
Shots of non-white leaders show an incredibly handsome Nelson Mandela and, under a nice hat at a garden party, I think I spotted his second wife Winnie.